Monthly Archives: December 2010

My bookshelf is unsurprisingly crammed with far too many “The Science of…” books. I’ve found they fall into two subtly different categories: Introductory science books in disguise, using some pop culture reference as an example. An exploration of a pop … Continue reading →

The precipitation forecast as the American Geophysical Union fall meeting attendees headed to the airport to return home was less than ideal. Specifically, the airport was blanketed in fog, reducing airport operations to one runway, delaying and canceling flights. Line … Continue reading →

Everyone laughs that the Geoscientific Uniform is shorts, sandals with socks, a logo-bedecked polo shirt, a beard, and bald head. Maybe it’s the San Francisco fog damping everyone’s fun, but this year blue jeans or khaki slacks and either sweaters … Continue reading →

A speaker in the U13 session declined to list numbers for how many people were killed, buildings destroyed, or damage caused by his particular hazard, pointing out that every scientist seems to claim their disaster is the deadliest. Where I … Continue reading →

The annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco just keeps getting bigger. When I last attended as a wee fledgling graduate student, I went as a press representative for the Society of Physics Students. As such, I conducted impromptu … Continue reading →

You’ve heard about the diamond stars before, at the very least in Beatles lyrics. Turns out you can’t even trust stars to be real: recent observations have found a star with large amounts of zircon, more commonly known as a … Continue reading →

The interaction of strong north-south geomorphic obstructions and a low population density dominate the risk assessment for British Columbia. The north-south mountain ranges and valleys place severe limitations on where transportation and other infrastructure may be built. The limited economic … Continue reading →

Following the success of ShakeOut in California, we’re stepping up earthquake preparation in the Cascadia subduction zone with Shakeout BC. California is along a transform fault, where the Pacific tectonic plate is sliding past the North American tectonic plate (or … Continue reading →